


recognition

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [48]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7595335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is where David should cut himself off, tell Jake not to mind what he’s saying, take Jake up on that offer and ask him to leave.</p>
<p>“Why would you think you weren’t welcome?” David asks instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	recognition

After Georgie and Jake sit down, there’s about five seconds of extremely awkward silence before Georgie looks at David and says, “So how do you two know each other? You play together?”

David flicks his eyes over to Jake, unsure how Georgie missed the media’s insistence on holding them up as national beacons as rookies, a personification of the US and Canada’s rivalry, before Kiro starts talking about Vladislav and David realises Georgie was asking about him and Kiro. That makes more sense. As far as Georgie’s probably concerned Jake and David _are_ rivals, and that’s why things were awkward. 

He’s not sure why Georgie came over in that case, but him and David get along, at least David thinks so, and he’s noticed that wherever Robbie is, Georgie tends to be close by. Not right next to him or anything, usually, because that clearly pisses Robbie off, but close. David wasn’t sure why. Robbie so clearly doesn’t want him there, loud enough about it that David knows he isn’t the only Capital uncomfortable with it, but maybe it’s just—

Familiarity’s comforting. More than affection, sometimes. Even when David was furious with Jake, he still missed him. It didn’t really make sense, but then, a lot of things about how David feels about Jake don’t. It’s not like Georgie’s mad at Robbie — it seems to go one way — but maybe that’s why, when Georgie isn’t paying attention, Robbie’s generally looking his way.

But of course, David’s just — trying to understand something by making it like it is to him. For all he knows Georgie stole Robbie’s girlfriend or something, for all he knows Robbie just hates him, end of story, and Georgie’s too stupid to notice. Georgie doesn’t seem stupid, seems pretty smart, actually, but then, it’s hard to know. David never thought _he_ was stupid, but he’s feeling, more and more all the time, that maybe he is, that things shouldn’t be so hard.

The waitress comes quickly. She’d been friendly but not overly, but now she can’t be described as anything but flirty. She refers to Jake by name, and David thinks she might be a Panthers fan — not a big enough one to recognise Kiro, but a big enough one to know the captain — until Jake looks faintly abashed and says, “I clearly need to come here less often.”

“You don’t come here often enough,” she says, and Jake smiles at her, but not with the real one. It looks strained on his face.

“Well, I can see why Jake comes here,” Georgie says, and she laughs, says, “What’ll you boys have?”

“Birthday boy picks, so, not Guinness, huh David?” Georgie asks.

David hasn’t actually had Guinness before, he doesn’t think. Some of the guys like it, but it looks dark, muddy in the glass, more a coffee than a beer. “It’s a stout,” Georgie says, when David presumably looks confused.

“Not a porter,” Robbie adds snippily, and David tries to but can’t hold back a snort. 

“Not Guinness,” he confirms, and Georgie ends up ordering them a round of Sam Adams, which Robbie can’t even find fault with without looking like a hypocrite, since he repeatedly stated that Boston beer was best beer during his rant about the monarchy earlier today. David doesn’t know Georgie well enough to be sure, but he thinks that might have been on purpose.

“Sorry there wasn’t anything Canadian,” Georgie says.

“David doesn’t like Canadian beer,” Jake says, then goes kind of red when David looks at him.

“I like some,” David says.

“Really?” Jake asks.

“Just because I don’t like Molson doesn’t mean I don’t like Canadian beer,” David says.

“Or Labatt,” Jake says. “Or Moosehead. Or Sleemans—”

“Shut up,” David says, but he can’t help laughing, and Jake grins at him. “I like Mill St.”

Him and Jake had gone to dinner there after training one sweltering July night, wandered the distillery district, baked hot cobblestones under their feet, until the heat had driven them inside, the dim cool restaurant facade around the brewery itself. Jake ordered tater tots alongside the wings they split, and David thought he was ridiculous, but he ended up eating most of them, Jake laughing and waving a hand, telling him to enjoy them when he tried to nudge them back over to Jake’s side of the table. Their bare knees knocked together under the table when they tried a flight of beer after dinner, leery of going back out into the hot evening. David didn’t like most of the varieties, but the ones he liked he liked a lot. Jake liked all of them, or at least claimed to, and the ones David didn’t want to finish but felt obligated to drink, he finished for him.

“I know,” Jake says. “Me too.”

“There’s a story here,” Georgie says, and Jake shrugs jerkily, looks away from David. “Well, if we’re exchanging stories about when we met,” Georgie says without pausing when neither Jake or David say anything, “Jake knocked me on my ass. Had bruises for a week.”

“I said I was sorry like five times, Georgie,” Jake says, laughing, and Georgie continues, embellishing a little, if Jake’s protests are to be believed, and David’s inclined to think so. He’s a good storyteller, and it’s not hard to picture Jake at sixteen, clumsy with the growth spurt that nudged him over six feet, that would nudge him higher, tripping over his own feet and taking Georgie down with him. Immediately befriending Georgie after. That’s not hard to imagine at all.

Jake talks a little, but less than he usually does, a faint smile on his face, and David should be looking at Georgie, since he’s the one talking. Tries to, but he keeps looking over at Jake without meaning to, and Jake’s usually looking back. David wonders what it would have been like, meeting him before he loathed him, before he was the epitome of everything David had worked for, failed to get. He thinks he probably wouldn’t have liked him, even then. He likes him now. More than he’s supposed to, he knows that.

“I’m going to the washroom,” David says abruptly, and isn’t particularly surprised when he finds Jake in the narrow hall leading to it when he comes out. 

“I’m sorry,” Jake says. “I didn’t know—”

“It’s fine,” David says. “Really.”

“I didn’t mean to crash your birthday,” Jake says. “I know I’m not exactly welcome, I can head out if—”

“Why would you think that?” David asks before he can stop himself. There’s something about Jake that undermines his self-restraint the second he’s established it. He used to blame Jake for that, but it’s his own fault. He’s not even sure Jake’s aware of it.

“What do you mean?” Jake asks.

This is where David should cut himself off, tell Jake not to mind what he’s saying, take Jake up on that offer and ask him to leave.

“Why would you think you weren’t welcome?” David asks instead.

_Why would you think I didn’t want to see you?_ , thankfully doesn’t leave his mouth, so at least he’s able to maintain some measure of self-control.

Jake shrugs. “We haven’t exactly talked in awhile,” he says.

“Yeah,” David says. “Because you stopped talking to me.”

He can feel himself going red, hot. It sounds whiny, desperate to his own ears, so he can’t imagine how it sounds to Jake. Pathetic, probably. He thinks of Kiro telling him it’s unhealthy, the fixation, the way he can’t let go of it, and it’s one thing to know it, hold it inside you, and another thing to admit it aloud.

“David—” Jake says.

“I need to go back before Kiro lets Robbie kill Georgie,” David says quickly, walking back toward the table before Jake can say anything.

When he gets back Kiro’s telling a story David’s heard before, one about the Penguins post-Cup, and Robbie and Georgie are thankfully both paying attention to him and not one another. Georgie stands to let David in, and Kiro nudges David’s foot with his own gently without pausing in the story, leans back when David lets himself lean on him.

Jake comes back after a minute, and David avoids looking at him, takes a sip of his drink and asks Kiro a leading question to underline he’s paying attention to the story.

“Don’t spoil for others, Davidson,” Kiro scolds.

Sorry,” David says automatically, and Kiro wraps an arm around him, shakes his shoulder, and continues the story without taking his arm back. 

Storytelling seems to be the theme of the night, and David doesn’t volunteer any of his own, sure he’ll just be awkward, boring with it, but no one pushes him to, seem fine with him listening, laughing occasionally, because Robbie tells the same sort of stories as Kiro, over the top, meant to entertain, and university seems to be the place to experience the sort of things that are perfect for those stories, judging by the amount it shows up in Robbie’s stories, Kiro’s, Massachusetts campuses so often the setting, blanketed with snow. David never regretted going into the NHL at eighteen, but he feels a dull sense of longing now, even though if he had gone to university, he’s sure he still wouldn’t have the sorts of stories they tell. 

Kiro dropped his arm after awhile, but he’s still a warm line against David’s body, and David didn’t realise how heavily he was leaning on him until Kiro gently nudges him with his elbow, and David straightens up.

“Sleepy, Davidson?” Kiro asks.

“A little, I guess,” David admits.

“It’s a long season,” Jake says.

“Truer words,” Georgie says. He looks kind of tired himself, now that David’s looking. Still good — David doesn’t particularly _want_ to notice that, but he can’t avoid it — but washed out, faded. It was hard enough coming to a new team at the start of the season, and David had Oleg. Georgie walked into a room midseason to a hostile defence partner. David would be tired too. David _is_ tired. David would be exhausted.

Jake doesn’t look tired. David knows Jake tired, after a work out, or a long day, or a hard one, knows the sort of blurriness that overtakes him, the way the increasingly sharp angles of his face just sort of — gentle. David didn’t realise how much time he’d spent looking at Jake before, but when he looks at him now he recognises every expression like he’s memorised them, their meaning. David’s never had less trouble reading a face than he has reading Jake’s: he doesn’t hide anything, either because he doesn’t try to, or because he doesn’t know how.

“Maybe time to leave?” Kiro asks.

That’s for the best. It’s getting close to curfew, dragging late, and David’s tired. Even if they have an off-day tomorrow, it’s responsible to be as well-rested as possible for the game against Tampa on Friday. 

David doesn’t want to go.

“Okay,” he agrees. “Robbie?”

“Gotta take a piss first,” Robbie says.

David tries to give Georgie some money for the beer, but Georgie won’t take it, repeatedly telling him that it’s his birthday and no one should pay for anything on their birthday, and Kiro leads him outside before he can argue it more, before he can linger any longer than a quick goodbye to Georgie, to Jake. It seems insufficient, but lingering is — it’d make it obvious, so it’s awkward waves and awkward smiles and David feeling like he forgot to say something important.

Robbie comes out a minute later, says, “I’m going to stick around for one more drink if you’re okay to get back.”

David frowns. “Getting kind of close to curfew,” he says, but he’s more concerned that Jake’s going to get caught in the middle of a fight. He’s tempted to go back in if Robbie is, but he should go back to the hotel, and it’d be — he already said goodbye.

“Kurmazov basically gave the okay,” Robbie says, and before David can argue Oleg meant for his birthday, “Someone’s got to make sure Georgie gets back before the bars shut down.”

“And that someone is you?” Kiro asks, laughter in his voice. David doesn’t really think it’s funny.

Robbie just shrugs.

“Okay,” David says. “Be safe?”

“Sure. Fucking Boy Scout right here,” Robbie says. David’s pretty sure that’s a lie.

“I’ll go back with you,” Kiro says, and even though there’s no point, and it’s not a long ride back, David’s completely incapable of swaying him, so Kiro climbs in after him, leans on David, who glances at the driver before figuring he’s probably used to it, that this is the chosen transportation of the drunk, the tired. 

Kiro’s chin digs into his shoulder, and it’s not comfortable, but David doesn’t pull away. “I’m sorry,” Kiro says.

“For what?” David asks.

Kiro loosely gestures something that David doesn’t understand. “It was not what I planned for your birthday,” he says, finally.

“It was fine,” David says, then pauses. “It was good,” he says, and that sounds truer.

“Good,” Kiro says. “Then I planned everything this way.”

David snorts. 

Kiro gets out when they get to his hotel, says something to the driver and wraps David in one of those hugs he’s never gotten from anyone else, that linger but aren’t — romantic, like with Jake, or victorious, on the ice, but are just — comforting. He’s comforting.

“You’re comforting,” David tells him.

“You’re drunk,” Kiro says with a laugh.

“I’m not,” David argues, and he isn’t. He’s warm with it, looser, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to drink too much around Jake, since David — it didn’t seem like a good idea, so he paced himself, couldn’t help noticing Jake doing the same, matching him drink for drink while Georgie and Robbie and Kiro pulled ahead.

“Happy birthday,” Kiro says, kisses him, smacking, on the cheek, because he _is_ drunk, and David flushes and shoves him, but not hard. “Love you, Davidson.”

David goes darker, pushes him again, really just a nudge.

“Say I love you,” Kiro says, pouting.

“I love you too,” David says, the words coming out stilted, awkward, but once they’re out he feels lighter, and he gratefully hides his burning face in Kiro’s neck when he pulls him in for another hug.

“Happy birthday,” Kiro says, quieter, a murmur, the movement of his throat gentle vibration against David’s cheek.

“Thank you,” David says, and means it more than anything.


End file.
